The 2,000m’ Virgin megastore – slated
to open at the Opera House
downtown next summer – is set to prove
that, when it comes to retail, bigger is
better. Shops in Lebanon are small by
international standards. Despite all the
post-war new build there are, for example,
only 13 supermarkets above 3,000m’.
And the CD market is far less developed
than the food market. To date, record
shops have all been small – with the
exception of the Media Store in Dunes,
which is 1500m’.
Mario Haddad, who runs the Media
Store, reportedly spent $1 million furbishing
the shop. Haddad’s Top Ten
record chaiq claims 40% of Lebanon’s CD
market. The Virgin store represents a $5
million investment. The franchise is 55%
owned by Jihad Murr, the executive manager
of Murr TV, and 45% by Marwan
Kheireddin, vice chairman and general
manager of Al-Mawarid Bank.
Solidere favored the higher social and economic
council as a tenant for the Opera
House rather than Virgin. According to one
insider, the company thought that the
Martyrs’ Square location was not ideal for
a music store: “It will be surrounded by a
building site for ten years,” he says.
Virgin aims to open by June 2001.
Saudi lifeguard
With the success of Spinney’s and
Monoprix, there are many plans
under study for other large-scale supermarkets.
This could spell trouble for Cooperatives du Liban (Co-op), currently
ailing with $59 million in debt on a$150
million a year turnover. But there may be
reason for hope. The Saudi AlMouhaydeb
Group wants to sign a 12-year
licensing and management agreement
with the Co-op in a move that could
revive the nationwide grocery chain.
The Co-op supermarkets at Antelias,
Khaldeh and Chiah are all 4,000m’, but
many of its 50 stores – which employ
2,000 people and are a major outlet of
Lebanese agricultural products – are
much smaller and more expensive to run.
Al-Mouhaydeb Group runs the Giant
Stores chain in Saudi Arabia and could
bring a more dynamic approach to Co-op’s
retailing. “Mouhaydeb is used to trading
from large hypermarkets in Jeddah,” says a
retail specialist. “I would say that only two
of the Co-op stores have any real potential
-Galaxy andAntelias-and theAntelias one
needs knocking down and rebuilding.”
Think less economically
Anyone who applies the laws of economics
in trying to understand the
real estate market in Lebanon may be
using the wrong approach. That’s the theory
of Na jib Hourani, who is researching
a PhD on the Beirut and Amman property
markets from an anthropologist’s point of
view. “I’m looking at discourse, how people
talk and think about real estate,” says
Hourani. “The economic and political
systems are very different in Amman and
Beirut, but real estate works in a very similar
way. This suggests underlying similarities
outside politics and economics.”
The Brooklyn-based Hourani, whose
father came from south Lebanon, is
working for his doctorate at New York
University and currently undertaking
research as the guest of the center for
behavioral studies at the American
University of Beirut.
“Some people think I’m nuts,” he
admits, “but, all the same, they’ve been
very helpful. The key to economics as a
discipline is that everything else is equal.
When it comes to real estate in Lebanon, clearly everything else is not equal. For
example, the economist may say that it’s
irrational to hold on to property when it
could be sold and the money invested for
a good return, but people may have values
that the economist does not recognize.
When I talked to small shopkeepers in
downtown Amman, they talked about
value not just in terms of the dinar but in
terms of community and history.”
Hourani believes that his work could
have practical applications – new
approaches both to finance and architecture.
“We cannot just dismiss non-economic
values as irrational or vestiges of
tradition,” he says. “Rather we should
look for ways of incorporating them.”
Anew tenant
ry,he Bank of New York has become the
.l latest client to sign up for the Atrium, the
new downtown retail/office building. The
bank, represented by consultants Healey &
Baker, has taken a 250m’ office on a nineyear
lease. It will pay $250 per m’ a year.
The bank’s neighbors include Merrill
Lynch – which has taken a whole floor of
over 1500m’ – and American Express.
The Atrium building is seen as the only
destination in downtown that currently
meets international standards for newbuild
(“Doing in Right,” April 2000).
Aside from Circle Hitti, the bulk of the
Atrium’s first floor offices have been
taken by jewelers, who are also the
major clients for the first-floor retail and
have been attracted by the Atrium’s location
opposite what will be – in time – the
gold souks.
